- There are several different dynamics enginesinside Cinema 4D, and all of them rely ongood practices in order to attain goodsimulations and decent viewport interactivity.Because simulations in general can bequite a computationally expensive endeavor,keeping these concepts in mind whilebuilding our simulations will allow us toexperiment further.So this video, we're going to take a look atfour different cloth simulations.And as you can see here, I've got one that'sa three by three, in fact, I'll come over here toDisplay, and enable gouroud shadingwith lines so you can see the subdivisions.

So our first one's three by three, this one's 20 by 20,50 by 50 and 100 by 100, and I've gotcloth tag on each one of those flags,but what I'm going to do is enable the first one,and one of the first concepts that you need tograsp when working with cloth is that itmust be on an editable piece of geometry.If you notice, this icon here has the pointsand a polygon in the middle.If you were to work with a straight plane,primitive, make this z so it faces us.

You'll notice you can still tweak outthese segments, but they're parametric in nature.Meaning you can't dive in to point mode,edge mode, or polygon mode until youmake this editable, and you can do thatover here by hitting this button ortyping the keyboard shortcut C.And once you do that, now you'vegot access to all the sub-object levels,point, edge and polygon mode.So once that's an editable polygon,you can add the cloth tag.

So this first flag, it's a three by three polygon,and with that cloth engine enabled,what we're going to do is play the timeline,now this is pretty important, so when you'reexperimenting and going through differentiterations of all these settings here tosee what works for you, you're going towant to play the timeline.And by playing the timeline you're actually tellingCinema 4D to calculate the simulations on the fly.And it's going to do that as fast as it can.And down here at the bottom...I've got my frames per second running,so it'll tell you how many frames persecond it's actually drawing, so becausethis is a lower resolution flag oflower resolution geometry, it's drawingas many frames as it can per second,and that's a pretty high framerate.

You can hit Shift + V in your viewportand bring up the HUD, and down here,frames per second, you can enable thatif it's not already enabled for you.So while that's fairly low resolution geometry,let's see what happens when we move to a 20 by 20.I'm going to come back here to mycloth tag and disable it, and on my 20 by 20 flagI'll enable the cloth engine here.I'm going to rewind and push F8 on the keyboard,or the play forwards here.And you'll notice 20 by 20,we're getting some pretty decent movement.

And it's low resolution enough towhere we're not taking a big hit on the framerate.Right now we're getting about 45 frames,and so that's a pretty decent start.You'll notice as we go through and add moregeometry that the framerate takes a hit.So, I've enabled this flag for 50 by 50,the cloth engine is on now,and we'll rewind and hit play again.Now you'll notice that the frames per second issomewhere in the six, seven, eight frames per second.So there's some detail there that we gain inthe flag simulation, but it's at the cost ofa slower experience, slower viewport.

And just to accentuate this, a flag that's100 by 100 you'll notice that the frameratewill drop pretty considerably, so let's run this.Now we're down to one to two frames per second.Now there's ways around this tocompensate for the lack of viewport interactivitywith the higher resolutions, and that's donethrough caching, which we'll cover through insome of the later courses.But for now, it's important to know thatthe object needs to have enough polygons toallow for various deformations that a real cloth exhibits.

But not so dense that it bogs down the computer.And so, when we're experimenting withthese different cloth simulations,you'll notice that as I went through each one ofthese cloth tags and disabled each one.When you're working with multiple cloth tags,that's just that much more the computer'sgot to figure and figure out for the simulation.If you have to work with multiple cloths,it's generally a good idea to disable all ofthem except the one that you're working on.And that way you can focus in and devoteall the resources to just that one simulation.

You'll notice as I'm running through here,I'm going to enable the other cloth enginesand you can watch that frames per seconddecrease as we go along.And I'll enable this one.Keeping these general ideas in mindwhen using the cloth engine in Cinema 4Dwill help us get better simulations withfaster viewport interactivity.

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1/25/2016

A flexible and dynamic 3D cloth simulation is a commonly requested feature in modern motion graphics. Realistic cloth simulations that respond to forces such as wind and gravity can take the visual language to another level. Luckily, CINEMA 4D's cloth system offers a relatively simple toolset to incorporate flags, banners, and other convincing cloth simulations into motion graphics and animations.

Cloth Simulations for Motion Graphics in CINEMA 4D is a project-based learning experience that follows three projects from start to finish: an animated flag blowing in the wind, opening and closing theater curtains, and a cloth-on-object logo reveal. Each project is rich with lessons that artists can adapt and apply to any cloth animation. Author Alan Demafiles will help viewers use the C4D Cloth tag and colliders, attach cloth to other geometry in a scene, loop simulations, correct imperfections with the morph deformer, and apply logos and other patterns to fabric. Start watching to incorporate cloth simulations into your mograph skillset.